


Andrew Knows More Than You Think

by elementalities



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: A little bit of angst, F/F, Pining, but andrew helps, im a big lesbian and theres not enough renee allison fics, in which comp het happens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-31
Updated: 2018-01-31
Packaged: 2019-03-12 01:20:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13536630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elementalities/pseuds/elementalities
Summary: In which Renee is incapable of realizing her love for Allison and Andrew takes it upon himself to help her out.





	Andrew Knows More Than You Think

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I will take your side  
> You make me feel like I've been waiting my whole life  
> And I could die  
> To find that simple kind of love  
> You can't deny  
> Just say it
> 
> -Say It, Just Say It by Mowgli's

The bright sound of overplayed pop music spills from the girl's dorm every friday night. Dan ushers the boys in before locking the door, insisting every time that the dance parties are a mandatory team event. Nicky and Matt are all too happy to join in the fun, even if Matt only does it to please Dan. Or so he says.

Andrew had come up with a creative way to pass the time, and dragged Neil into it with him. Not that Neil really ever said no to Andrew's schemes. All it took was a bottle of exorbitantly expensive vodka, poured into a gallon of moose tracks ice cream. It tasted awful, but they didn't mind, and neither did the rest of the team.

If Andrew wanted to get plastered and end the night by tearily ranting about how his boyfriend was an annoying junkie, and pull a knife on anyone who tried to help him to not break the tv with his stumbling, well, who were the Foxes to stop him?

Allison relished these parties. She loved the closeness that came from dancing like an idiot with her teammates. She loved the quiet next morning, with everyone either too hungover to get up before noon or hungry enough to spend $20 at mcdonald's. This was nothing like the high class events she had attended with her parents- she wore pajamas with a stain on the knee and a hole in the waistband. There was absolutely no elegance or poise to her movements (it would be far too generous to call what she did dancing) but it felt right and free and truly hers in a way her life with her parents never had been.

Nicky had demanded an oldies night, but unfortunately for the team, his idea of oldies was "DJ got us falling in love" by Usher. Renee sidled up to Andrew, who for once was without Neil. Kevin had elected to teach him the chicken dance, a task they both tackled with ridiculous enthusiasm for two men in their twenties. "Hey." she said, her eyes bright and sparkling.

Andrew smiled at her, slowly devouring a spoonful of his signature vodka ice cream. "I don't know how you stand that stuff." she continued. He shrugged at her, a glare in his eyes that she had long since stopped fearing.

"Neil likes it."

Renee snorted. "Neil has a neck fetish so I don't exactly see that as a valid excuse."

Andrew rolled his eyes, and Renee focused hers on her best friend: Allison.

Currently, Allison was doing some weird dance move she probably made up herself, while A Thousand Miles blared. She wasn't saying Nicky had bad music taste, but she wasn't in the mood for dancing either. She grabbed his ice cream and set it on the table next to them, a theft he surprisingly allowed.

He let her watch in silence for a few more moments before grabbing her wrist when she went to close the container. "You are beyond help." He snorted, nodding at Allison. Renee had no idea what he meant by that, but Neil returned before she had to respond, and all Andrew's attention went straight to him.

"Yes or no?" They both said at the same time, voices a little shaky from too much alcohol. They bumped noses when they kissed, Neil keeping his hands carefully by his side despite the vodka clouding his head. Andrew sighed and pulled them onto his hip, then spun around, pushing Neil into the chair and placing himself straddled on top.

Renee made herself busy not watching them, though she was always pleased by how far Andrew and Neil had come since they met each other, and since they finally admitted to dating.

She refocused on Allison, her gaze ghosting across her hips when they swayed, her arms moving fluidly.

—

She woke up with the memory of last night a bit hazy, exhaustion clouding her thoughts. Her phone had buzzed loud enough to rouse the dead, so she picked it up and stuck it to her ear.

"How did you sleep? Surprised this managed to wake you.” Andrew said, voice purposely too loud.

She pursed her lips together. "How's waking up in Neil's bed?"

"We're in mine, actually, but it's great, thanks for asking."

Sarcasm didn't sound good on Renee, so she didn't respond. Instead, she dramatically flopped back down in bed and lifted a foot in the air, eyeing the polish Allison had carefully applied a few nights ago. She didn't know why looking at it made her breath hitch.

"Renee?"

"Still here, monster. Give my regards to your boy." She went through her memories of last night, but came up empty. She remembered loud music and dancing, but not much else. Oh, she was so going to regret this.

Andrew hung up, but not before a cheeky "Give my regards to Allison" that Renee didn't understand.

—

"Walker! If you don't block these balls, I'm going to aim the next one at your head!" Kevin shouted, his face red and dripping with sweat.

Two hours into practice and a sleepy Renee was not doing so great at guarding the goal. She'd been having some weird dreams. About Allison.

She shrugged them off. Maybe, she thought, she really did need a boyfriend. After all, her subconscious just latched onto Allison for this particular brand of dream because she was with Renee so often. 

Yes, she decided, that was it.

Allison smiled at her from across the court, and the ball slipped past her and into the goal. Kevin made an unintelligible noise of absolute rage and despair, throwing his racquet on the ground and stomping into the locker room.

Wymack just watched him go. He was too understanding for his own good, and he knew Kevin would be back in a few minutes to drill the team for another hour.

So Allison crossed the court and tapped her racquet against Renee’s and started an easy conversation with her friend, giggling and cracking jokes.

For some reason, Renee felt off balance and giddy, like she was still tipsy from the previous evening’s festivities.

Andrew watched silently, the ghost of a smile on his face, or possible a smirk. 

—

[are you ever gonna tell me what’s going on with you]

{i have no idea what you mean!}

[sure you don’t]

{andrew, don’t be cryptic.}

[you’re the one who said we’re friends, so be a friend, and talk to me, walker]

{about?}

[do i have to spell it out for you? Allison. You know, our dealer? lives in your dorm? you can’t stop staring at her? you know we can all see that, right]

{i do not!}

[denial is pointless, you know i dont lie]

{…we’re friends, minyard. friends look at each other, sometimes}

[you dont look at me like that, so dont you try to pull that ‘just friends’ crap on me. Been there, done that.]

{you’re talking about neil?}

[duh]

{why would that be relevant? you’re dating neil, im Allison’s best friend}

[text me when you’re no longer being obstinate]

—

A good friend was happy when her friend got dolled up to go meet the guy she’d been raving about for weeks. A good friend helped her pick out cute lingerie in case it turned into sex. A good friend made sure to text her halfway through the date to check in on her.

Renee decided she might not be as good a friend as she tried to be. The guy was nice enough, good facial features and green eyes. He was handsome, of course. Allison had good taste, that could not be denied. But if that was true, why did she feel so anxious? Her stomach was a swirling pit. Allison huffed about her lack of help with her outfit, but still gave her a hug before leaving. Allison was a better friend than her, she thought.

She repainted her toenails and decided to use one of Dan’s fruit scented face masks. Dan never minded when she did that. Her phone buzzed.

[hey. drinks?]

{I don’t drink}

[then drink water]

{maybe}

[it’ll be fun]

{mm}

[come to my dorm and we can watch a movie. ill drink, you eat ice cream]

{non alcoholic ice cream?}

[fine.]

A pint of strawberry with hints of vanilla was waiting for her one one of the chairs, and Andrew was waiting on one of the others. “Hm, But I’m A Cheerleader or A Bug’s Life?” he asked, flashing the two dvds. “Matt and Dan hoarded most of the good movies and Nicky thinks I need to catch up on my lighthearted family movies. I have decided to indulge him, just this once.”

Renee laughed.

She finally picked But I’m A Cheerleader, which she had never seen.

Andrew smiled when he put it in. His scheme had worked exactly how he thought it would.

—

Allison stumbled back into the dorm a few minutes after one, waking Renee but not Dan, who had decided to stay with Matt. She threw her purse and keys on the floor and nearly rammed into the bathroom door, which was ajar.

“Renee! Guess what!”

“Mmmmmgh.” she responded, which roughly translated to “please let me sleep”

“He was a jerk! Said exy wasn’t a sport for girls like me.”

Renee shot up in bed, indignant on Allison’s behalf. “And?”

Allison finally reached her bed and crawled next to her, leaning heavily on her friend. “I punched him in the gut once we left the restaurant.”

It was a response so authentically Allison that Renee could picture it. She would have been tipsy from the wine she had no doubt ordered, her musculature clearly visible in her immodest dress. A light perfume that had been designed just for her scented the air. He had made the remark and her smile had tightened for only a moment, too slight for him to notice. She would make conversation until the dinner was over, making sure the waitress got tipped 20%

And then they would have gone outside, and he would have leaned in for a kiss, but her fist would be faster and soon he’d be doubled over on the sidewalk, while she walked away in her six inch heels.

Renee bet she had ducked into a bar to drink, and then slowly made her way back to the dorm.

Yes, Renee could see it happening in her mind’s eye as if she had been there.

Allison had fallen asleep while Renee had let her imagination fill in the story. She removed her heels, unzipped her dress, and tucked her into the covers. She pulled an extra blanket from a drawer and went to sleep on the empty bunk, not wanting to disturb Allison in order to sleep in her own bed.

She barely slept, but when she did, she dreamed of Allison.

—

Two weeks passed with Andrew making strange comments about Allison at every opportunity. It was weird for him to be so vague, but maybe he thought he was being direct.

{lets grab pizza for the team}

[have it delivered]

{no! lets drive somewhere}

[fine]

{meet you in the parking lot. Allison left me her keys}

[oh, did she now]

{i dont know what that means}

[you aren’t listening, then]

{sorry}

It took five larges to satisfy the whole team, enough so everyone had plenty of what they liked. Andrew’s demand for mushrooms was often the wrench in their order. No one else liked mushrooms, and its possible he didn’t either, and was just fucking with them. Needless to say it resulted in a ton of arguing. 

Renee finally bit the bullet on the drive home. “Okay, so what am I not understanding?” her eyes briefly left the road to meet Andrew’s, an eyebrow raised in question.

He sighed. “You like Allison.”

“…Like as not a friend.”

Renee said nothing.

“Renee, pull over.”

She pulled over, her mind racing.

“Wymack mentioned it first. He told me not to let you make a repeat of me and Neil. It took a day for me to understand, but he’s right. You gotta be honest. And the truth is you have feelings for Allison.”  
She thought back to how upset Allison’s dates made her. The way being too close to Allison gave her anxiety. Her dreams. The urgency of her prayers as of late. 

“Let’s just go home.” her voice was shaky, something it almost never was. Renee had a near unshakable calm, or so the Foxes had always thought.

He turned to look out the window and didn’t say another word. Renee thought about what he’d said the whole way home.

—

Everyone sort of knew Allison was bisexual, just another thing her parents had resented her for. They knew there had been scandals that the Reynolds had paid to cover up, involving some girl or another and Allison in some semi intimate moment when they thought they weren’t being watched. Not that Allison had ever said it out loud. She traded in gossip, but tended to be more reserved with any that pertained to her, out of habit.

It had never been anything the Foxes really thought about. Allison was just Allison, with all her eccentricities and dramatics. If she wanted to talk about it, they’d talk, but it didn’t get brought up.

For some reason, though, Renee could not stop thinking about it.

She wanted to ask so many questions. How does it feel to kiss a girl? Would it fill some absence, some void she didn’t realize she had? What did it mean to love a girl? How did these things change her? She couldn’t bring herself to say any of them.

Instead, she thought about Allison’s lips, her hair, her spiked heels, her strong hands. She thought about her easy movements on the court, at once aggressive and graceful. She thought about her body and how it worked, muscles and blood and neurons, the skeleton holding her form upright.

She called Andrew and cried on the phone while he listened, and asked him questions he couldn’t answer. She wanted to call Nicky, who would volunteer truths about himself without a second thought, but she knew he wouldn’t be able to contain this.

Most importantly she wanted to call Allison, but the thought terrified her.

—

It was the strobe lights. It was the loud music. It was the way Allison smiled at her. It was the caffeine in her system. It was the packed dance floor.

There was not rational explanation for why Renee pulled her best friend in close and kissed her, but she tried to figure one out anyways.

She was shaking as she did it, her mouth clumsy and unpracticed. This was not like kissing a boy, chaste and quick. This was a sun exploding behind her teeth, its light arcing through her veins, synapses firing overtime. Her brain wasn’t fast enough to keep up with her body, hands on Allison’s waist, breath coming in short gasps.

She pulled away before Allison could and fled the dance floor in a panic. She threw up on the bathroom floor of Eden’s Twilight, shaking uncontrollably. And then the tears came.

—

“You can’t keep avoiding me.” a smile was playing on Allison’s lips, but her voice was strained and her eyes were worried.

Renee forced on a smile of her own that didn’t meet her eyes either. “I’m not avoiding you.”

Her friend didn’t buy it. She dropped down into the beanbag chair across from Renee’s bed and sighed. “I didn’t know you weren’t-“ she trailed off quietly, staring at the wall.

“I’m sorry for not telling you. I’m really not sure what came over me. I shouldn’t have done that.”

Neither of them spoke, letting the words hang between them, dark and heavy and insurmountable.

Eventually, Allison left the room and Renee curled up to sleep.

—

[tell her]

—

UNSENT TEXT MESSAGES

{Allison I think I am in love with you.}

{you’re all i think about}

{kevin says i need to focus more on exy, but how can i when you’re right across the court from me?}

{andrew thinks i need to practice more honesty. so the truth is i don’t regret kissing you, i just regret the way it happened. i’d like to try again. i’d like to take you on a date, a real one, with flowers and candles and a dinner, and then kiss you at the end of the night.}

{i would like to not be afraid of loving you, but i am afraid. but i love you}

{i am mostly fine. i am mostly fine, but you are going to make me insane. loving a girl is wanting, i think. you are featured in my best dreams. loving a girl is like learning how to love after years spent thinking i wasn’t meant for it, years thinking i couldn’t love a boy because my heart was so cruel, years thinking i couldn’t love a boy because god came first, but now i know. i understand. i love you, and it is going to tear me open}

{i love you}

SENT MESSAGES

{i miss you}

—

It was quiet in the dorm room when Allison came in, just tipsy enough to be comfortable with what she was about to do. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to do it, it was that she was afraid.

She did not give herself time to think, she just marched in and straight over to Renee, and kissed her before she could stop herself.

She had not meant to fall in love with Renee, but Renee had not meant to fall in love with Allison.

This was new territory for both of them, but their teeth were soft and their hands were strong, pulling closer as if struggling to get a grip. Their breaths came out in gasps, lungs struggling for enough air when they would briefly allow themselves to break apart.

This was safe, and it was right, and it was good.


End file.
